Oathkeeper
by wcfarrow
Summary: As an Oathkeeper, it is Fernstripe's responsibility to uphold the oaths of the world. She travels through time, defending the promises of old and new alike, protecting the fragile course of history from harm. But when she is thrust back in time generations before her birth to uphold her greatest oath yet, will she succeed, or will her heart get in the way of her head?
1. Chapter 1

Oaths are hard to keep, without exception. They are not mere promises, meant for today or tomorrow or maybe next moon. They are not fleeting and easily fulfilled. Instead, oaths are sworn for all time, and must be kept in order to ensure the flow of the universe. A broken oath one day may lead to chaos the next, and the course of history may crumble in response.

Oaths are hard to keep, but they must be kept. No matter what. Sometimes, it means watching the wrong side win, or losing loved ones to injustice. Or it means saving lives for their future roles, and witnessing something beautiful unfold. There is no way of knowing what an oath will bring until it has been upheld, and that is all that matters.

I chose this life. A second life, really. I crawled into StarClan, broken and beaten, the victim of a monster I should have never tried to outrun. Somehow, death had not eased my pain. I remember how long I hid in the grass, shivering as the moonlight washed over me, healing nothing. I remember wanting to die again. And I remember getting my second chance.

I swore to protect the oaths of the world, swore it before all of StarClan. I took up the rank of Oathkeeper, a role to be served for one hundred moons, at which point the next Oathkeeper would be chosen for duty. "You will train them for fifty moons, and then you will pass into the stars," they told me. One hundred and fifty moons to return to the living world. StarClan meant it for justice. I meant it for love. For family I left too soon, abandoned in their deepest grief. For friends left to fill the empty spaces at their side, seeking a face that is no longer there. I cannot visit them; it would upset the natural balance. But in between oaths, I can watch over them, guide their paws on safe paths. I am an Oathkeeper. I see past, present, future. I have a paw in all time, stretched beyond the horizons and then some, and I will do everything in my power to grant my loved ones long, happy lives.

But first, I must keep this oath.

Cinderfoot no longer offers his advice at every turn, reserving his sage wisdom only for reprimands or emergencies. During the last few moons of my apprenticeship under him, he has allowed me full control over the oath. This is a blessing in some cases, but a curse in others; tonight, it is certainly the latter.

Ahead of us, a queen crosses the river by way of an old, rotted log. The spray of the current makes the bark slick, and her rounded black belly does her balance no favors. Behind her, quivering in fear, is a whole litter of kits. They look old enough to be apprenticed, but not old enough to make the crossing alone, not with their young claws and their mother's heavy pregnancy. No one on the log is safe.

The river splashes up over the banks, pulling at my paws, and the sharp scent of fish scorches my nose. It does not come from the water, though, but from the oath. Each has a distinctive scent, growing stronger as they reach the point of fulfillment, and since this oath was made over a shared minnow, it thus smells of fish. I have smelled better oaths, but those oaths are often the easier ones, the ones which require the least work from me.

"Cinderfoot," I say, "the kits must survive."

"Which ones?" A test. He knows which ones will live today, which ones will not see tomorrow. And so do I.

I don't answer him, instead signaling that he ought to go behind the kits, where they still hesitate on the shore, watching their mother as she tries to demonstrate the safest way to make the crossing. With a nod, he slips into the river, paddling with sure, strong paws. No one will see him, if he so chooses, a luxury I do not yet have. I must complete my fifty moons of training, keeping oaths the hard way, while he can become a ghost to set the world at ease. I suspect StarClan makes us accountable this way. My name, my face, my decisions, all will be attached to this oath until the end of time. The hard choices will be mine.

Cinderfoot has told me these are the worst days, the hardest days. Running along the riverside, I am beginning to see why. The smell of minnows burns in my mouth and nose, ripe with too long spent in the heat, and my skin crawls. I know what I must do.

The queen is halfway across when Cinderfoot reaches the log. There, he rises from the water and stands atop it, untroubled by the current. It rushes through him, over him, proving him no more than a ghost, and he stares up at me, unreadable and waiting. His advice is absent yet again, but at least I can be certain that when the time is right, he will act.

A tree-length from the queen, I shout for her attention, never slowing. Her kits have tentatively begun to climb up the end of the log, mangling the soft bark in their claws. One falls, nearly at the top, and brings another down with it, an ill omen. Another crawls over the edge and wobbles as it stands. The queen is torn between me and her kit.

"Hurry!" I shout. I must pretend like I don't see the skinny form on the log, taking one trembling step at a time. It's the kits that make this oath so much harder to keep. "You have to hurry!"

"I can't! My kits, they're not across yet. I can't leave them. They need me!" Her long fur clings to her body, collecting the worst of the current as it licks upward again. If she were dry and safe, free from wild panic, she could be beautiful. Terror, though, makes the best of us ugly.

Before it happens, I see it. The log shudders and groans, lurching down down down until a wet crack lances through it. One end rolls violently, sliding into the current; it will be dashed to pieces in the waterfall ahead. The other end will slide in the muddy slope of the bank, but get stuck between two rocks, just jagged enough to hold it in place. This is what must happen to keep the oath.

And it does. I try to coax the queen across, offering her warmth and safety and another way to her kits, but she only retreats further into danger, refusing to cross without her kits. More than halfway across to begin with, she nearly makes it back to the midpoint when the log trembles exactly as it should. The rest, I see in slow motion. It splinters, soggy bark crumbling into the raging waters. The kits wail and shriek, their claws snagged in the shifting bridge, unable to release. The queen cries out, too, unable to find purchase.

Cinderfoot acts here. Only I can see him as he explodes out from beneath the log, and I hold my breath as he leaps up, farther than any mortal cat could. He lands at the edge of the break with his usual grace, sparing me a brief glance, and then he jumps, bringing the full force of his weight down. The log snaps clean in two. His end jolts, shifted by his weight and sliding directly into the rocks, where it remains. The other end crashes into the river, soaking the banks with a violent splash. I duck as a wave of silty, minnow-scented water slams into me, throwing me back from the riverside, and when I lift my head, I see the kits on the opposite bank, dripping wet and huddled together, their eyes wide in shock, their mother gone. As was always supposed to be, because their father swore an oath by his father's blood that he would raise them as his heirs, raise them to become the finest warriors his Clan has ever seen.

The skinny black one that was attempting his crossing dangles from Cinderfoot's mouth, eyes glazed with shock. He will not remember his savior, and perhaps he will not remember this moment at all. Or maybe he will. His father will raise him ruthlessly, darkening his heart, and when it comes to war with the other Clans, this kit will choose to lure his enemies to the river, where he can push them in. Drown them. He will be a monster.

There are two tortoiseshells on the bank. One will die tonight, claimed by cold. She stood too close to the river when the log came down and received the worst soaking. The other will die whole seasons later, claimed by natural causes: old age, a fine thing for a warrior to reach. The Clan will whisper that her brother's cruelty cut her short, though, and that she might have lived still longer.

The last kit is black and white, with his mother's long fur. He is beautiful in the same way I imagine she would have been, with round eyes and a petite nose, even though he wails loudest of them all. He will not follow in his father's footsteps. He will refuse to become the warrior that his father demands, and instead, he will make this crossing mere moons in the future, when he has more strength and courage in his bones. He will reach the other side, and he will run towards the moon, never stopping until he gets there. And the moon will greet him gladly, because the moon he chases, the home he seeks, it will be a tom with downy fur, silvered in the moonlight. They will be in love, happy in their peaceful existence, and in the season before he dies, the black-and-white tom will rescue a litter of kits abandoned by their mother on the same riverbank where he lost his. He will be there by chance, he thinks, though it is fate and nothing more, and he will carry them to his birth Clan for care, leaving them in the dead of night.

These cats will be the heirs his father never deserved. Adopted readily on account of their helplessness, they will grow hale, hearty, and old. One will have nine lives, and another will commune with StarClan every half-moon. Their Clan will be reshaped by their will, taking the form of something much more benevolent. Because the black-and-white cat survives and returns to his Clan, if only for a short while, the Clan's prosperity will be ensured for ages. Had his mother completed the crossing with all of her children, then the father would have seized power instead. The other kits would never be found on the riverbank, and before long, there would be nothing left to call a Clan but a few blood-spattered rogues and their hunger for more.

I hate that the queen could not live to see her children blossom. I hate the future that would come to pass if we allowed her such a life.

This is precisely what makes oaths so hard to keep.


	2. Chapter 2

"You did well." Cinderfoot's praise used to bring me warmth, but now I just think of the queen and the kits she lost, born and unborn alike. Doing well meant sacrificing her for the future. Her life was the price for prosperity. Doing well can be exceptionally cruel.

We walk together along the river, having brought the kits to their Clan, leaving them just outside the camp. No one saw us, though someone might have smelled me (and not Cinderfoot, lucky ghost that he can be), but they are likely too preoccupied to search out their heroes. So we walk alone along the river, pretending everything is all right, and that we are not killers as much as we are protectors.

Once, I asked Cinderfoot how he coped with the oaths. Most are like this one, requiring us to humor malevolence to encourage later benevolence, asking that we play the role of hero and villain alike. At first, he said nothing. Then he said that he just lived oath to oath, and counted his remaining moons of service when he could. Because it would be over someday, and someone else would have to wrestle with his burden instead. That someone being me. So we don't talk about it, because that's easier, and nothing else is so easy in our half-lived lives.

Where the river curves, streams pour into it, swollen from new-leaf rains. At the first of these, we branch away from the main course and head for the trees, following the path that brought us here, smelling of minnows and misfortune. The first few tail-lengths within the fringe are dry and scattered with gnarled shrubs ready to unfurl as new-leaf marches on. Then, the canopy of the forest grows denser, blocking out the light and throwing shadows across the earth, shadows that grab and reach, threatening to tear out the heart of anyone who strays for too long. In this region, we find the circle of stones that will return us to the fields of StarClan to await the next oath we must keep.

"Will you be staying?" asks Cinderfoot. I shake my head, stepping into the circle beside him. The stones glow with a soft green light that never fails to make my stomach churn, even after almost thirty moons. We travel in this way, pulled from this place and that time, back to StarClan's fields, or the reverse. Between assignments, I use the circles to visit my Clan, and in that respect, this oath is no different from any other. Cinderfoot will return to seclusion among the dead, and I will enter the one realm where I can be a ghost, in seclusion among the living.

The world blurs, swirling out of focus before snapping back in a flurry of moonlight. I sway, searching for my balance, and as soon as my head clears, I leave Cinderfoot behind. He is already loping away to his den, hidden by a stream, tucked underneath a rocky overhang. That is his peaceful place, tranquility made tangible. Mine, though, is through another portal.

He used to try to keep me in StarClan. His reasoning was that it hurt to go back, and he wasn't wrong. It hurts so much every time I look on my Clan, alive and thriving without me. Granted, it's the oaths I keep that allow them to prosper, but being a part of the grand scheme of thing feels the same as not being important at all, not that that stops me from being a glutton for punishment. By myself, I enter the other portal and reappear in a forest touched by the sun, still dripping from greenleaf rains. It is a beautiful day to break my own heart again.

This is the one world where I am a ghost, albeit not my choice. In my own timeline, no one can see me, and I cannot change anything. There are no oaths here, and even if there were, a different Oathkeeper from a different time would address them. StarClan has accounted for conflicts of interest by making me powerless in the one place that I would give anything to bring about change.

At least there is peace now. The itch to alter the world hasn't crept up on me yet, though it's only a matter of time. I follow the familiar tracks back to camp, relishing the roll of pebbles below my paws as I stroll, drinking in the old scents that have been ground into the earth. This is home, no matter how many moons go by, and every step is familiar as it was the day I died. The narrow track between rocky shelves is as worn as ever, and the ferns around the corner are out of control. Hawkstar could order them trimmed back every moon and they would still spring back, lush and so alive. I slide beneath their fronds, arching my back into the curves, and then hurry to move aside as Yarrowtail skitters through, on a mission to please her mentor if I had to guess. But today, she is not the one I'm looking for.

Sometimes, I visit her, my dear sister, deep in her medicine cat training, yearning for true independence from her mentor. Other days, I long to see my parents again, still alive, still in love, still together even if only one of their children is around these days. Today, though, I look for Pebbleclaw.

We could have had kits, I think. I would have liked that, not just because I wanted them, but because I know he would make a wonderful father. He is strong but tender, powerful but gentle, keen but kind. If he has flaws, I have long since forgotten them, as love makes one do.

The trouble is that it has been thirty moons, and while I have no one new to love, he does.

I find him curled into his nest, serene in sleep after a long night shift guarding the camp. Sharing that nest instead of sleeping in his own is Cloudleap, his feathered tail draped over Pebbleclaw's back, and their paws layered atop one another. My heart lurches at the sight, bubbling up with a vague sense of jealousy and despair. I want his happiness more than anything, I really do, but while I'm trapped in the afterlife, Pebbleclaw is slowly growing older, grey hairs peppering his muzzle, and worse, he is falling in love again. Without me.

"Do you miss me?" I ask, sitting in the den's entrance. "I know you did, but do you now?"

No answer. Even if he wasn't fast asleep, there wouldn't be one. I am a memory in his life, just a sliver that's some thirty moons gone. He has every right to move on in search of the happiness I took with me. So I sit there. I sit and I wait, trying to understand how he can be happy without me when it's so hard to be happy without him. I can't look at him directly, not while Cloudleap is twined so close, nearly a part of him. I can feel how inseparable they must be now, and it thunders through my bones.

I am not needed here.

It still takes Cinderfoot until sundown to rescue me from my self-inflicted misery. "You torture yourself too much," he says, rocking back onto his haunches at my side. "The world doesn't stop because you died."

We've had this conversation before, and it always ends the same way. "I wish it had. Didn't you?"

"Maybe once." The standard answer. "But they need warmth and love that we can't offer. Better to let them fend for themselves, move on, mend as best they can. Besides, we have a job to do. That's what lets them do this."

"And if we quit our job?"

He never answers this because we both understand that we cannot be responsible for the unraveling of the universe. Not after all the hard work, the time, the sacrifice. We cannot throw the world away just to sate our own hearts.

There is so little left to say, and when Pebbleclaw begins to stir, it is time to leave. I spare him a last glance, and even though Cinderfoot asks me not to come back again, I know that I'll never be able to stay away. I died thirty moons ago, but my heart did not, and unlike some Oathkeepers before me, I cannot separate the two. Perhaps this is why Cinderfoot refuses to let me out of his sight as we return to the portal, and even after we reach StarClan's fields again, he stays at my side.

"You can go," I say. I have no interest in conversation, not until I re-center myself. If Cinderfoot presses now, I will snap. I am brittle.

Instead of turning away to his peaceful little stream, though, he bars my way forward. In life, this must have stopped many cats in their tracks, with his jagged ear and whatnot. He could have been a brute. But I know him, so I try to push past, to no avail.

"They already found another," he says. "A new oath." Gravity laces his words, pulling the stars out of the sky all around us. Normally, StarClan finds time between oaths to let us rest, or to come to terms with the shades of grey our morals have taken on. This is unusual, to be sent off again so soon, which means it must be urgent. Truly there is no rest for the wicked.

Cinderfoot already knows where to go, and he leads me to the proper portal, a ring of stones hidden in the shadow a towering hill. Along the way, he tells me what he knows, and it isn't much. StarClan can sense an oath many long years ago, one in need of keeping, one in danger of breaking. One that has escaped their notice until now, obscured by forces unknown. The tension, according to Cinderfoot, is thick enough to cut with one claw, and any day now, it will boil over. We cannot delay.

Only once we are inside the portal do I realize that Cinderfoot has withheld our destination, and once we arrive, I see why. The lands around us are the same ones we left only short moments ago, familiar to me as the back of my paw. We are on DawnClan lands. We are in the heart of the forest, near the camp. We are in my homeland, and there are few reminders crueler than this.


	3. Chapter 3

The breathlessness I feel does not come from stepping out of the portal. My head swims as I take in the lush forest, recognizing every inch of it. If we turn and walk a few fox-lengths, we will find the dirtplace, and if we go to our right, chasing the rising sun, we will reach a muddy stream used only by apprentices to cool down in the thick greenleaf heat, the water too polluted for anyone with any sense to ever dive back in. Pebbleclaw first flirted with me there, pushing me into the silty water and laughing until I pulled him in with me, too young yet to realize that this play was a front for our growing attachment.

Are we in the present? The past? Bile rises in my throat. This could be the future, and I am not ready to confront a world after me, after all my friends and family. The past is not so hard to face, knowing what will come after, but the future is more nebulous and so much easier to shift. There is no telling if I matter to the world that comes after me, no telling if I have made any difference.

Of course I have, I remind myself. I am an Oathkeeper. But the worry remains, a hard kernel nestled beneath my heart, and I cannot meet Cinderfoot's eye as he beckons me onward. We turn south towards the camp, the most likely place to find an oath that must be kept. I keep my eyes on path, though I could navigate it if I were blind. I may have been taken from my home, but my home cannot be taken from me.

Unless it can.

We come to the camp soon enough, except there is nothing there. It is empty, overrun with ferns and ivies that stretch all the way up the high stone walls of the ravine we call our home. There is no sign of the dens, not even one of them, and narrow streams trickle through, wetting the earth, making it unpleasant to traverse. Only a few steps forward see my paws muddy and soaked, something that has never happened here before.

"There's no one," I say, scenting the air for good measure. "It's all empty. Everyone is gone. StarClan, they all left. Why would they go?" Is this the future? Emptiness? An abandoned camp, a house of memories, all withering on the vine?

Cinderfoot dabs at the stream nearest him. "They haven't left," he says. "They just haven't been here yet. See the streams? They're coming down from the other end of the ravine, and if we go there, we'll find that they haven't been dammed. The dens aren't destroyed because they haven't been built, and the undergrowth is everywhere because it hasn't been pulled out. The Clans aren't here."

To my surprise, this doesn't offer any relief. I should be glad that we are not standing in the center of a Clan lost to time, but my stomach squirms. It's my Oathkeeper training surfacing, searching for its purpose. "If the Clans haven't come here yet," I ask slowly, "then where is the oath?"

An oath cannot be made by just anyone. We protect the promises made by believers, by the cats who hold StarClan near and dear to their hearts. A common field mouse cannot make an oath in the same way a kittypet's words also fail to have any bearing on the future. If there are no Clans here, then there cannot be an oath.

Yet StarClan has never sent us to the wrong place. Cinderfoot and I have fulfilled our duties every single time, without fail. Perhaps it is out of necessity, as it has been for every Oathkeeper before us, but we are proud of our ability to keep the flow of time intact.

"Was DuskClan founded before DawnClan?" asks Cinderfoot. He comes from one of the ancient Clans, ShadowClan, and does not know the local history the way I do. In this case, though, I do not know it that well, either.

"Possibly," I answer him, tasting the air again. Damp moss and mud coats the roof of my mouth with a slimy scent. "We landed near the border, and went this way out of habit." And out of self-preservation, despite being dead. In my time, DuskClan does not make a tolerable neighbor, but a bitter rival. The border is a place of heavy contention, and it is a dangerous place to be. Skirmishes have broken out over the slimmest of reasons, and from my kithood to my death, they only grew bloodier. Cinderfoot and I may not be able to die a second time, but the DuskClan border is a dangerous place to be nonetheless.

DawnClan is empty, though, and the oath will not wait for us. With a last glance at the ravine and its walls, so cold before DawnClan came to be, we slip away again. The ferns tug at our pelts as if begging us to come back, and I want nothing more to give in. Still, we march on.

The border seems quiet when we finally find it, a task made all the more difficult by a lack of scent markers. I only know we're there by the sight of the towering ash that used to belong to DawnClan in the moons before my birth. It was lost in a violent battle, fought over because it was home to lively squirrels and birds and all manner of prey to feed the hungry mouths on both sides of the war. Now, so far in the past, it is much smaller, with skinnier branches and fewer nests jutting out from the crooks in the limbs. Its majesty remains, though; I know what it will be, and I am in awe of its will to persist for so long.

Beyond the ash is dense forest. Somehow, it seems darker than the territory I call home, as if DuskClan's bleak hearts cast a shadow over the heart. Nonsense, of course, but even if I have gotten better at recognizing my prejudices, I am not able to shed them so easily, not yet. Each step past the border feels like a betrayal of the values that raised me, and only Cinderfoot's presence keeps me from fleeing.

He is nothing if not absolute, and I do not know how I will manage when his service as an Oathkeeper ends. His walk is more of an easy roll, a steady lope, and even when the odds stand tall against us, he conjures up speeches and solutions that always set things right. If it were not for him, I would refuse to search for this oath. Another Oathkeeper in another age would have to take it upon their shoulders.

But I am here because Cinderfoot marches through the forest without a trace of fear, his chin held high and his shoulders squared. Fear, he has said before, is our enemy. If we must show ourselves in order to preserve the oath, then we cannot be meek. The order of the universe is not upheld by cowardice. I am allowed to feel fear, but never to show it.

Bundling away my nerves into some small, dark part of me, I level my stride with Cinderfoot, only falling behind when the way is too narrow for us both to pass. We slide through overgrown chervil and beneath a blackened alder that melts away with rot. A bush full of nightshade waves at us on the other side, as if to welcome us to death's door. Any medicine cat worth their title would consider it an omen, those little black berries sparkling so happily as we go, but we are dead. They cannot harm us any longer, and at their very worst, they are nothing more than a warning for danger that may lie ahead.

Beyond the nightshade, there is nothing but trees and mixed undergrowth broken by a single stream deeper in. The birds twitter overhead, breaking their songs once they notice us pass, and I can still taste chervil in the air, tainted with the stench of wild garlic.

"Never liked garlic," I mumble.

As if he hadn't noticed, Cinderfoot cocks his head at me and tastes the air. His brow furrows once he catches the scent, and he wrinkles his muzzle. "It's too wet here for garlic. The stream would rot the bulbs before it ever grew. Is it…"

He trails off, and I know what he means to ask. Is it the oath? Are we chasing a promise wreathed in one of the most pungent odors known to the Clans? Cinderfoot would know if an herb is out of place, thanks to his medicine cat training, and I do not doubt him for a moment.

But the truth is, the oath is not here. We learn this a heartbeat later, when cats fling themselves from the ferns and brambles and sweet, sweet chervil, all reeking with garlic like they slept in it overnight. Cinderfoot escapes their searching claws, vanishing to everyone's eyes but mine. He is nothing more than a trick of the light to the living, a shadow they thought they heard speak.

I cannot disappear, though, and a heavy blue-grey blur slams into my back, driving me into the ground. While I cannot die, I can be hurt, and the taste of dirt mingles with hot blood in my mouth. I must have bitten my tongue.

"The other one got away," snarls a raspy voice behind me. I buck my shoulders, searching in vain for any trace of Cinderfoot, but wherever he is, he's not in my limited line of sight. There's only me and the weight on my back, a weight that presses harder with every passing moment. Stars burst before my eyes, and if I inhale one more clump of dirt, I swear I'll choke.

Then the pressure lifts, hurled aside by a force still firm, yet far less severe. I cough, wincing at the pulsing ache in my tongue. Thank StarClan I didn't bite it off, but it still hurts enough that I can't help but slur my words. "Please, lemme go."

"Who are you?" As the weight lifts from my back completely, a tom steps into view, his long sable legs the same color as the mask on his face. He blinks at me with cool golden eyes.

I rise to meet him, and fight the urge to search for Cinderfoot. If I pretend as if he was never there, he may be able to get me out of this without our attackers being any the wiser, especially if I cooperate, draw all attention to me alone. "Fernstripe," I say thickly.

It has the opposite effect that I imagined. Instead of placating these cats, they hiss and spit from all sides. I hear words like "foxheart" and "spy" thrown about, laced with venom and fire, and even though the sable tom's voice is polite, a hard edge creeps over his features.

"And what did Duskfrost expect you to do, all alone in our territory?" he asks. His claws slither from their sheaths; I don't miss the threat written there.

"I don't know a Duskfrost," I reply truthfully.

He looks at me with growing scorn in the lines of his face. "You don't know Duskfrost, you aren't one of ours, and yet you have a warrior name. Fernstripe, your story is very, _very_ lacking.

"Bring her to Dawnfeather," he orders his group. "And when you've done that, we'll search for the second one. He couldn't have gone far."

I have no choice. They flank me in a tight circle, and we march through the woods in total silence. Flashes of Cinderfoot's solid form appear between the trees, always close enough to watch, but never close enough to intervene, and I silently plead with StarClan to let him rescue me. These cats are mad to think me a spy, and if I cannot break free of their clutches soon, the oath may be broken. The fate of time itself rides on my escape.


	4. Chapter 4

Dawnfeather is a commanding figure. As soon as I am ushered into a little camp in the shelter of a maple thicket, she strides toward us, creamy fur glowing in the light that dapples the earth. The stripes on her legs and face are a warm, dizzying contrast to the rest of her fur, which puffs out around her like a pale cloud.

Her eyes, though, hold none of the warmth her pelt suggests, and neither does her voice. "Lie to me and I will throw you to the foxes." She curls her lip and then demands, "Tell me your name and your reason for walking on my lands."

"My name is Fernstripe, and I wasn't aware whose lands I was on." Innocence is a safer path than indignance. Usually. Here, though, it seems to heighten everyone's suspicions. All around me, hidden in the shadows of bracken dens, eyes gleam like cold stars, displeased with my response. They want details. Better yet, they want proof.

Of course, I cannot tell them that I am from their distant future, nor can I provide them with any guarantee of the truth. Which means I must lie, and lie well. Before they can slit my throat for failing to meet their expectations, I expand on my story. "I came from far away, looking for the Clans. My mother raised me on tales of cats that ruled forests, until she was taken from me on the…" It hurts to use my own death this way, but it is still fresh, as are all things the monster took from me. The tale I offer them is false, but the quaver in my voice is real and raw. "Taken from me on the Thunderpath. She's dead.

"She named me after my grandfather." This is a truth.

"I thought finding the Clans would be the best way to honor her." This is a lie.

Maybe they believe me now. The watching eyes all around retreat, returning to whatever it was they were doing before. Only the ring of cats who captured me remain, and Dawnfeather, with her ice-chip eyes.

"There are no Clans," she growls. "Your mother was wrong."

Indignance. Now is the time for it, I realize. Before Dawnfeather can continue, I snap, "My mother swore on it. She promised me they were here!"

The laughter that bubbles up around me steals my breath. Cats whisper to one another and snicker between strokes of their tongue along ruffled fur. Do they sense the lie? Do they think they sense a lie? Worse, do they still believe I'm their enemy? Even Dawnfeather laughs, a mirthless, empty sound that might have been honey-sweet once. She rumbles with a humorless purr from deep in her chest, eyes half-closed with delight.

"There was a Clan. SunClan. And then Duskfrost thought she deserved to become leader even though I was already the deputy when Ripplestar died. She was jealous," Dawnfeather scoffs, "and she took half of the Clan with her, trying to get what she wanted. At least she'll get what she deserves, though." Her declaration is met with a chorus of tightly-checked cheers; underneath, the rallying cry is tired, as if everyone in the thicket has heard this promise before, as if everyone else has made such a promise, too.

It could be the oath, though. If giving Duskfrost what she deserves will protect the course of history, I may need to stay close to Dawnfeather, as close as I can be. The trouble with that, though, is that I suspect she doesn't want me here, a feeling that only grows when the sable-point tom tells her that I had a companion, a cat with fur like smoke. Immediately Dawnfeather's gaze locks onto me again with renewed hardness.

"I told you I would throw you to the foxes if you lied," she says. Her claws unsheathe and bite into the earth. "So, tell me. Where is your friend?"

I could lie, and say Cinderfoot was never there. I could tell the truth, and say he disappeared. Either way, I've left out a crucial detail; I was not alone in my journey, and everyone on Dawnfeather's lands must clearly be accounted for.

As I swallow past the lump in my throat, though, StarClan decides to answer my prayers for deliverance. Cinderfoot appears at the entrance to the thicket, little balls of catchweed clinging to his pelt. He looks like something of a ruffian, and entirely out of character as a result. I suppress a laugh at the sight of him, all bulky and tough.

"My name is Cinder. I'm Fernstripe's guide," he announces, slicing calmly through the sea of hostile cats to stand at my side. He is poise incarnate, so practiced in his moons of service as an Oathkeeper.

Dawnfeather considers him only a moment before slashing her claws across his face.

I've never heard Cinderfoot scream before, but it's a horrible noise, like the sound of a robin singing even as it's strangled. He shrieks and falls to the ground, clamping his front paws over his face, and by the time I drop to his side, he's already subsided into a high keening that leaks out from between clenched teeth. We cannot die, but we can be hurt, and he is hurt gravely.

"Put them under guard," Dawnfeather says, swiping her tongue over her paw as if she didn't just attack my mentor. "They stay there until we know they're not Duskfrost's." And with that, she stalks away, calling cats out of the undergrowth and forming a thin patrol. They stop to roll in mud as they leave, and then they are gone, leaving me to curl protectively around Cinderfoot in an effort to shield him from the rest of Dawnfeather's unfinished Clan.

The cats who found us in the forest offer no sympathy. Instead, they herd us through the thicket until we're forced into a small bracken den that will buckle in the slightest rain, the weakest breeze. The message is clear: we are their prisoners until Dawnfeather decides otherwise.

"Bring me your medicine cat!" I order them as all but two retreat. One of them is the same blur of grey that tackled me earlier, a stocky tom, while the other is a thick-furred black she-cat. The latter blinks at me and shakes her head.

"He left with Duskfrost," she says. "And then he died. No apprentice."

"Fine. Don't you have an elder who knows medicine?" I push.

The tom chimes in. "Dead by the end of leafbare without Cedarwing to help. There's no one."

Cinderfoot groans behind me, back to holding his paws over his eyes. If our captors won't find someone to help him, I'll just have to do it myself.

"Tell me what you need," I say, running my tail over his back. He flinches at my touch before leaning into it again. Blood drips down his cheek in fat red drops, and I can see the open gouges peeking out from under his toes. Dawnfeather struck him precisely, as far as I can see; she missed one eye and I dread to see what she's made of the other. "Tell me what herbs you need."

"Celandine and marigold," he grinds out. "Poppy seeds." Each word is a chore, tugging at the raw wounds on his face and releasing fresh streams of blood. I hush him after that, licking the crown of his head. He needs to save his strength for healing. For the oath. He shouldn't even have to save his strength in the first place, but that's something to focus on when he isn't at risk of infection. If Cinderfoot is indisposed, I can't do this by myself.

The cats at the mouth of the den whirl on me the moment my paw crosses the threshold, and I dig my feet in. "He needs celandine, marigold, and poppy seeds," I recite, adding, "and cobwebs as well," for good measure. The catchweed burrs still tangled in this pelt will help hold a poultice in place, provided I can get the supplies to make one at all. Given the blank stares our guards throw my way, I worry they haven't got a clue what I mean.

A new cat rescues me, though, approaching with a finch dangling from his jaws. He sets it at my feet, the first act of kindness thus far, and then he asks me to repeat myself.

"Celandine, marigold, poppy seeds, and cobwebs. Cinderf– Cinder is going to lose his eye if you don't bring them to me right now." I'm not a medicine cat, but I'm sure of it. A vicious blow like that could never leave him unscathed, and even in the afterlife, he could scar. Besides, as far as these cats are concerned, Cinderfoot and I are flesh and blood. We are as mortal as they come for all they know.

The tom squints at me as if he too fails to understand, but then he nods. He's crisp, down to the tabby lines streaking through his ginger pelt and the way that he curls his tail over his back. Moreover, he's important. The guards defer to him when he sends them for the herbs I requested, bobbing their heads and slipping from the thicket without a second glance, leaving him to watch over the den alone. I can't tell if this is arrogance, or if he knows he is the warden of two cats who will not fight their way out.

We size one another up in the silence that follows. He cranes his neck to peer around me at Cinderfoot, who has curled up with his back to the rest of the world, still whining softly into his tail. Meanwhile, I try to decide how much of an obstacle he will be.

All of the cats in Dawnfeather's group look hardy, at least, all the ones I've seen. They must be, to have survived a leafbare that stripped them of the only medicine cat in the area and their remaining elders. Yet this tom has an easy air, as if everyone around him isn't brimming with suspicion and bloodlust. In between glances from Cinderfoot and me, he smooths the fur on his chest and washes his ears with sure, confident strokes.

Then, once his fur is sufficiently clean, he says, "Dawnfeather blinded him for a reason."

My hackles raise. He says it so plainly. Cinderfoot's injury means nothing to him at all, and he could go the rest of his life without worrying about it. "Oh, so it wasn't senseless violence? I think he and I see it a little differently."

He has no reaction to the vitriol in my voice, not even a measly flick of his ears. I look for an apology, but find no trace of one. He just answers, "Your guide got away from my brother's patrol and crept into the camp without anyone noticing. She blinded him because he's dangerous." His voice lowers, like he's telling me a secret. "And dangerous scares her."

All Cinder did was give her his name and his reason for traveling with me, albeit a fake one. He didn't bluster or threaten or attack, and yet she raked her claws through his eye without hesitation. Now, her subordinate is trying to justify it to me.

Suddenly I don't care that he actually sent the other cats to retrieve the herbs, or that he brought me a finch. I pull the bird inside and leave it in the corner for later before lying down behind Cinderfoot. He trembles faintly against my body, and startles at the scrape of my tongue along his spine. I want to help ease his pain, to send him back to StarClan where he can recover in peace, but we've left the circle of stones far behind, and an oath still lies ahead. Whatever happens, he will have to make do with the herbs we are brought, and from there, we must tackle the oath together.


	5. Chapter 5

They don't bring us herbs until morning, and by then, the blood on Cinderfoot's face is dry, and sour-smelling pus dribbles from the wound. He's stopped moaning, and barely twitches as I mash a slew of yellow flowers into a sticky paste. They're certainly marigold and celandine, to fight infection and to soothe the eyes, if I've been paying enough attention to Yarrowtail and her training in the last thirty moons. The trouble is, I don't know if they'll work. Will they help, so long after Dawnfeather attacked him? Cinderfoot can't even give me an answer, his typically sage advice contorted by pain, completely unintelligible.

"Hold still," I whisper, gently smearing the poultice over his eye. Instead, he almost bolts upright, gnashing his teeth to bite back a yowl, and I can hardly blame him. The wound must sting enough without me slathering a gritty paste over it, but it has to be done. He fares marginally better as I wrap cobwebs into a crooked eyepatch, and only flexes his claws twice when I take the catchweed from his pelt and fix four burrs at the corners of his eye to kept the bandage in place. Nonetheless, he's in deep pain, and he laps the poppy seeds from the pad of my paw without hesitating, taking so many that a living cat would likely fall into a coma instead of a light nap.

Soon, he's asleep on his side, the injured side of his face turned up so it doesn't scrape against the ground. This leaves me with the carcass of the finch from last night, two guards, and a nervous conscience that rattles around my skull.

I still cannot sense an oath. All night long, waiting for the herbs to be delivered, I wished for two things: a way to ease Cinderfoot's pain, and a lead on the oath. The sooner we see it through, the sooner we can return to the fields of StarClan and beg their help and healing knowledge.

Truthfully, though, once I realized StarClan could probably heal Cinderfoot, it was getting late, and my thoughts began to wander from my immediate fears to the future. Maybe, I thought, StarClan could send me back, after my service is complete. Reincarnate me.

Now that the sun is up, the idea sounds more harebrained than plausible, but there's a stubborn part of my heart that thinks it can be done. What wouldn't I give for a second chance at life in DawnClan? Even if it means losing all that I was, all that I've been, to try again, even if it means six moons of kithood followed by all the rigors of an apprenticeship, I know I'd do it in a heartbeat because I still love my home. I love my family. I miss them.

Pebbleclaw most of all.

It does me no good to get lost in my memories of him, but there's little else for me to do. I miss the crooked tilt of his head when something confused him, and the way his eyes glittered when he got a water vole for dinner. He still does these things, I'm sure of it, but not with me.

After that reminder, I try not to think of him again, and it's on to planning an escape.

I need enough herbs to get us back to the stone circle, and I need more prey. We can't run on empty bellies, if Cinderfoot can run at all. And then there's the matter of all the cats who could pursue us. Between changings of the guards and glimpses of cats sneaking by, there's plenty of able paws to hunt us down and bring us back, more than I could ever hope to distract. We're doomed before we even start, if I'm going to be honest with myself.

I fear our situation will only grow worse, too, when I spot Dawnfeather approaching.

"Rowanheart says you know your medicine," she says without preamble, stopping just outside the mouth of the den. She gives the paste across Cinderfoot's eye a meaningful glance.

"I might," I reply. Oaths are sworn when cats want something, and I've learned to recognize the shades of longing and greed in their varying forms. Standing before me, Dawnfeather drips with a type of desire I can only describe as precise, and I suspect I know what she's after. Without a medicine cat, in the face of an insurrection, cats will need healing.

I'm not certain I wish to provide.

But underneath Dawnfeather's desire is the same cold, calculating cat I met yesterday, and she senses my reluctance much the same way as I sense her greed. "Let's make a deal, Fernstripe," she says. In her mouth, my name sounds dangerous. "You and I both want something, don't we? We're in a position to help each other.

"Duskfrost doesn't have a medicine cat. Every cat fighting by her side runs the risk of dying from just a scratch. A single infection could kill any one of them, even the strongest warriors, and until yesterday, that was true here as well. Then you arrived."

"I think I follow," I answer, curling my tail over my paws. I absolutely see where Dawnfeather means to go with this conversation. "But I don't think I'm keen on choosing a side in a war that's not mine."

She purrs. Apparently, I am more entertainment than negotiation partner, and my hackles rise as she goes on. "Maybe so. But you said it yourself: you've been searching for a Clan, and somehow, you found one. Meanwhile, I've been searching for a medicine cat, and I found what I was looking for, too. How about we trade? You heal my warriors, and once Duskfrost has learned her place, I will make you a part of my Clan."

It's too good to be true, at least for the identity I've concocted. Fake Fernstripe has been searching for the Clans to honor her late mother's memory. Real Fernstripe, though, is a different story. I only want the oath and its resolution, and if I am confined to a medicine den, patching up victims in an endless feud, I may not find it soon enough. Realistically, the oath may take time to emerge, and more time still to be fulfilled.

Behind me, Cinderfoot mumbles something in his sleep, and I turn to him in case he wakes, impulse making me forget that Dawnfeather still watches my every move, awaiting an answer. Her eyes linger on him, though, half a moment longer than mine, and then we are locked in our quiet war once again.

"What about him?" I ask.

"You're healing him."

"And later? When he recovers?"

Dawnfeather curls her lip, and I get the sense that she thinks _when_ ought to be _if_. "We'll see how he fares," she says, "and how your hard work holds up."

She doesn't mean just Cinderfoot's eye. She means the rest of her Clan, and somehow, it does not surprise me that she has made his survival contingent on my performance. Inconveniently, my performance is equally contingent upon his survival; if he must be recalled to StarClan, all trace of him will vanish, Dawnfeather will likely suspect me of aiding his escape, and there will be no hope of finding the oath after that, not with Dawnfeather's warriors on my tail and Cinderfoot years away, recovering in the afterlife. Not to mention that without him, my knowledge of healing herbs is limited.

I need him maybe even more than he needs me. "Let me continue to care for him. Then we have a deal."

"We have a deal," she echoes after a long heartbeat, and with that, my freedom is sold. A faint whiff of celandine tickles my nose as she stalks away, and for a moment, I wonder if our negotiations have created an oath. It's only Cinderfoot shifting, though, and cool logic crushes me a moment later. I can clearly imagine my mentor reminding me that the oath is sworn outside of our actions in each timeline we visit. The negotiations are just that and nothing more. The oath will not be sworn as a result of my choices here. It cannot be.

But our ability to find it is absolutely tied to every decision I make from here forward. To keep Cinderfoot at my side, I have to heal anyone Dawnfeather asks me to, but to heal the cats in need, I have to rely on Cinderfoot. He knows his herbs better than anyone still standing in this fractured Clan. He is the key, and I can only imagine how much more successful this mission would be if it were only him, the Oathkeeper who can become a ghost, unburdened by the Oathkeeper who cannot.

It isn't important now, though. I can't afford to dwell on it, because Dawnfeather whips around from the entrance to her den, ears pricked. A heartbeat later, the tom who brought the finch last night stumbles through with a bundle of silver tabby fur hanging from his jaws. It's a cat, a young one, with blood oozing down her flank and dripping to the ground. She hardly fights his grip, and in the hush that washes over the camp, I can hear her whimpering.

"What happened?" Dawnfeather asks. Alarm flares, hot and bright, before she tamps it down, warding herself in ice once more. Then her piercing gaze swivels to me, and I swallow past the lump in my throat. Any cat with even the slightest bit sense could understand the beckoning, demanding light in her eyes, and I waste no time whirling back into the den I share with Cinder. Poppy seeds lie on a pillow of cobwebs, and I bundle them together with the remaining marigold, praying it will be enough for such a small cat, praying her wound is equally small.

My heart thunders in my throat as I hurry back out with my herbs, rushing toward Dawnfeather, the tom, and the wounded tabby. Dawnfeather appraises me with a cold, level gaze as I run, and her message is more than clear: I am to be tested, beginning now.


	6. Chapter 6

Her name is Snowpaw, and until today, she thought her wound was going to heal with time.

The tom who carried her home, the one who brought my finch and brushed off Dawnfeather's cruelty in the same breath, is Rowanheart. He is her uncle, and he tells me what happened while Snowpaw flinches from my inspecting touch.

"She was hurt fighting one of Duskfrost's patrols a few days ago. Fawnflight cut her leg, and it reopened while we were climbing today," he says. That much I can see. Up close, the wound looks jagged and half-healed. The blood is fresh, but the remains of a scab crackle and flake in Snowpaw's fur, and the slash is edged with globules of pus. Cinderfoot's eye is in an uglier state, but if I don't succeed here, Snowpaw might be able to challenge him for the camp's worst wound, provided the infection doesn't kill her first.

Heads poke out from flimsy dens, and a rising murmur fills the air around me. The cats still in camp this morning have been drawn out into the open, and I can feel their eyes boring into my back as I begin to mash up the remaining marigold between my teeth. Most of them probably don't know or care what I've done for Cinderfoot with the herbs given to me this morning, but now that one of their own is in my paws, not a single soul pretends at indifference.

Dawnfeather's presence is a weight on my spine, the crushing threat of failure. She looms to my left, her shadow falling across the upper portion of Snowpaw's wound, and it takes more courage than I have to ask her to move aside. Yarrowtail, I think, would never hesitate to give orders, not even to Hawkstar. My sister has always had a talent for commands, and though I wasn't around long enough to see her sculpt that talent, I wish more than ever that I had been. Maybe then I would know how to banish Dawnfeather's looming figure without shivering in my skin.

Rowanheart is easier to focus on. Unlike Dawnfeather, he has inspired frustration rather than fear, and as he hovers over his niece, a kernel of sympathy forms in my chest, quickly overshadowed by a sense of urgency. This must be done right, and if I cannot trust Dawnfeather, then Rowanheart may be the closest thing to an ally that I have. If anyone will want to do everything in their power to heal Snowpaw, it will be him.

Calling his name doesn't do any good. He frets over his niece, caught in a bubble of his own worry, licking the fur between her ears to soothe her as she screws her eyes shut and strains away from me. To my surprise, though, Dawnfeather flicks her tail at his shoulder, and he jumps to attention, looking at her first. "Fernstripe," she says, angling her ears in my direction. Rowanheart's gaze shifts accordingly, wavering between Snowpaw and me.

I swipe my tongue over a paw, clearing out some of the marigold paste before spreading it on Snowpaw's flank. "Hold her down," I tell him between licks. Then I nod toward the cobwebs and poppy seeds, adding, "And give her one of those."

"Just one?"

I run my tongue over my teeth, probing all the crannies for more marigold paste. I've used up all the flowers I was provided; I have to stretch what I have as far as I can. "One for now," I answer. "She's small."

Maybe he's right. Maybe she needs more. I look over my shoulder towards the den where Cinderfoot hides, as if a short glance will summon him to my aid, but nothing happens. He would know, but he cannot tell me now, so I have to trust what little I know about medicine, and that little I know says it would be better for Snowpaw to be in pain than for her to overdose on poppy seeds.

I am all that stands between Snowpaw and infection. Me and the medicine cat's instincts I do not possess are her last defense. But that will not stop me from trying, because this has nothing to do with the oath. Her death is not a necessary one, not one an Oathkeeper is bound to uphold.

I have seen too many cats die because the course of time demanded it. If fate wants to claim Snowpaw's life, I will not let it do so without a fight.

»»««

Somehow, she survives, and I can't credit it entirely to my own efforts. The first day was harrowing. She developed a fever in the hours after I bound her wound with cobwebs, and only a quick consultation with Cinderfoot in the evening taught me how to keep it at bay. Thankfully, there were feverfew patches just outside of camp, and Rowanheart recognized the white-and-yellow flowers the moment I brought them up. He was gone for all of a few moments before he returned with a heap of them in his jaws, and once we coaxed Snowpaw into swallowing some of the tangy leaves, her temperature began to drop.

Then her father returned from the reconnaissance mission Dawnfeather had put him on early in the morning, and according to Cinderfoot, I slept through his shouting match with Rowanheart. Snowpaw's father is Russetclaw, the same sable-point tom who led the patrol that captured me in the first place, and he was furious that the Clan's prisoner was being allowed to treat his daughter's injuries.

"Rowanheart reminded him you're the best option they have," Cinderfoot rasped as he finished filling me in the next morning, "but don't count on Russetclaw taking a shine to you, not in this life or in nine of them."

So I avoided Russetclaw, who stayed rather close to his daughter the second day, and as a result, the infection redoubled by moonrise. Dawnfeather herself went to fetch more marigold, and though she sent Russetclaw away to let me work in peace, she stayed. The message was clear: I was failing her test, and she intended to watch every one of my mistakes.

I've slept little since I finished redressing Snowpaw's wounds, sitting upright in the corner of the apprentice's den, fighting off the urge to lie down. Better I stay at this point, just so I don't miss any changes in her health. And Dawnfeather must feel the same. Her blue eyes are bleary, but still sharp enough, and every time Snowpaw shifts in her sleep, I feel Dawnfeather's gaze rake over me, digging deep into my skin. She needs only one excuse to tear me apart, and I am so tired, I cannot help but feel that she'll get it from me soon.

My thoughts wander as the fatigue sets in. Why does she care so much for the fate of one apprentice? As far as I can tell, they're not kin, and Dawnfeather hardly seems like the nurturing type, ready and willing to grace someone's bedside with a comforting presence. Leaders have more to do than watch poultices dry.

Then again, a total stranger holds one her cats' lives in their paws. Even if she pretends to watch poultices and pastes, she's really watching me.

She confirms it, calling my name. Twice. "For StarClan's sake," she growls, eyes narrowed. "Get out. Go see to your friend and get some sleep." Before I can read too much kindness into the order, though, she adds, "You're not use to me if you can't keep your eyes open. I won't have my apprentices dying of your drowsiness."

If I linger any longer, I'm certain her tone will only grow sharper, and so I accept the escape route she has offered. Dawnfeather must know I will not run without Cinderfoot, too, because no one escorts me back to the den we've been imprisoned in, and the guard appointed there simply steps aside to let me in, no questions asked, no threats delivered.

I don't recall falling asleep after that, but the sudden sunshine washing over me says otherwise, as does Cinderfoot. "Morning," he grunts. "Someone brought breakfast." His eyes flicker to the mouth of the den, where a scrawny mouse waits. We don't have to eat to survive these days, but we do have to keep up mortal appearances. As I stretch for the mouse to do just that, though, a sour smell stops me.

The mouse is rotten, bathed in its own blood, wreathed with its own innards. A glimmer of white wriggles in its desiccated belly, and I look away before I have to truly see the creatures making a meal of the little carcass.

"Seems like we've made some delightful new friends." Now that the maggot-riddled body has shocked me awake, I recognize Cinderfoot's dry tone for what it really is: sarcasm. The cool glint in his eye only confirms it. "They've made quite the effort to welcome us, don't you think?"

"I think," I answer slowly, "that they'd much rather say goodbye." Why else would someone leave crowfood on the stoop? Certainly not to make us feel at home. And if it was the only source of food around, we would know it. Dawnfeather's warriors wouldn't look half as healthy as they do on a diet fueled by rot.

A threat without real action should not deter us from the oath. It's not as if our job is easy or pleasant or even welcomed, and the cats we spend our afterlives helping have tried to scare us off before. But on those occasions, we've already had the oath in our sights. This time is different. This time, we have nothing to go on save StarClan's promise that we are needed here.

"Did they tell you anything else about the oath?" The question comes out as a whisper. Cinderfoot knows who _they_ are.

"Nothing I haven't told you," comes the answer. "All I know is that it must be serious if they weren't willing to let us rest first. I've never been put back in the field so soon."

Normally, Cinderfoot's sensible candor soothes my nerves. He has far more experience as an Oathkeeper than I do, and I trust him for it. Yet this stranding by StarClan is a first for him as well, and I suspect our lack of leads on the oath is equally unfamiliar.

"We'll never find it in time, not like this." I flick my ears at the mouse, the walls of the den, the whole situation. "And if we stay here, we might miss it. We might be too late."

Cinderfoot sighs and lifts a paw to scratch at the cobwebs over his eye before thinking twice about it. Instead, he lashes his tail across the earth behind him, scattering paltry clumps of moss all around. The last time I saw him this frustrated, we had been waiting for the perfect thunderstorm to break, one that would lead us to the oath that smelled like lightning-scorched air and burning pine sap. It had taken two months of lurking in a field, and all that we had gotten for it was an oath of vengeance. The bloodshed had been unimaginable, not to mention a poor reward for our thinning patience.

My mentor should not be so frustrated so soon, but how else is he supposed to feel? StarClan implied to him that this oath is more important than any we've been assigned, and yet it eludes us. There's not even a hint of it on the wind, nothing to lead us to the oath's true nature, then to the paths we must take to see it carried out.

"We have to learn more," he finally says. "Oaths are sworn on desire, and we need to know what these cats are after. What they could challenge fate over."

"I don't know if we have time to find out, though. If I were their born medicine cat, maybe I could get them to talk to me, but…" I don't have to finish my thought. We both know why I can't pry into this shattered Clan's business.

Cinderfoot can, though. We come to the realization at the same time, when his tail drifts through the moss without so much as a sound. I reach the thought with protests on the tip of my tongue, but Cinderfoot comes armed with sense, as well as the ability to make a ghost of himself. "I'll start this evening," he says. "You have to lie in the way so no one sees I've gone, but it's the easiest way."

"And if someone does notice? What then?"

He shakes his head firmly, and not for the first time, I see how impossible he must have been to argue with as a medicine cat. Once he's found his course, he stays to it with admirable steadiness, even if it means worrying me to a second death. We cannot afford to be found out before we know the oath, but we cannot afford to wait until it falls into our laps. Eavesdropping may be our greatest hope, if only Cinderfoot doesn't give us away.

I trust him, though. I trust him more than anyone in the world right now. "I'll cover for you," I promise, "but you have to be careful. You have to keep one eye on this den in case anyone looks in, because I'll have to take the fall if you're missing."

"We'll make it work," he replies. _We_. No matter what happens, we are a team, and we'll find the oath together. I'm buoyed by the thought, at least for a moment. Cinderfoot won't let me suffer in his absence, and I won't give him away to watchful eyes.

The way he stares at me, though, makes my blood run cold. "I'll do what I can, but Fernstripe, you'll have to keep watch for me. I haven't got one eye to spare."


End file.
